Update Notes: July 2017 Release

Welcome to STEAM and the *official* launch of Gigantic! After nearly five years in development, we’re proud to finally share our game with the world and begin the next stage of our journey! We’re extremely happy to now offer Gigantic in the same place as many of your other games. This month's release also introduces the first Hero since the arrival of our Eternal goddess – one who is more or less the antithesis of the honorable and ever-virtuous Zandora... So get ready to meet the confident and cunning fighter, Ramsay! Founder's and Ultimate Pack owners will unlock him right away for free, though anyone can take him for a stroll in the Practice Arena.

While this month's build marks the official launch of the game in the NA and EU territories, there is so much more to come for Gigantic! Every month, our goal is to introduce one new Hero or map to the lineup in each major release. In addition to this, you'll also see new gameplay changes and improvements, entirely new features, and more. On the back-end, we’ll continue working on the underlying systems to improve your game experience and expand into new areas of the world. This is only the beginning of Gigantic and Motiga, and we could not be more thrilled to continue our journey with all of you, our community!

Be sure to read through the notes below to see everything that’s changed, and to jump into the game this Thursday, 7/20 on any of our platforms to see the latest that Gigantic has to offer:

NEW: UPGRADE PACK

Don't want to pick up the Ultimate Pack right away? Don't worry; the Upgrade Pack allows you to easily upgrade from the Starter Pack to the Ultimate Pack:

All Heroes. Forever. Ultimate Pack owners unlock all current heroes and all future heroes coming to Gigantic!

1 Exclusive Skin: Cloudracer (Beckett)

100 Rubies

9 Win Prestige Boost

5 Bonus Fortune Card Draws

1 Starter Pack Friend Code (Arc and Steam Users Only)

NEW FEATURE: TEXT CHAT

Text chat is here! Utilizing the same stream of events as the existing ping commands and quick messages, text chat entries show up the lower right corner of the screen. PC players on Windows 10, Arc, and Steam can now send text messages while in a match by pressing the RETURN key. Press again to send the message, or press ESC to cancel and clear the input box. Keep in mind that while the input is open, all keyboard entries are routed to the input, so your combat controls will be temporarily unavailable.

In addition, we've added a function to hide the stream of messages after a sustained period of inactivity. Once you or a teammate sends another message of any kind (text, ping, or a quick message) the block will reappear with the recent history of messages.

STEEL SERIES SUPPORT

Steelseries products with Advanced RGB Illumination will benefit from a host of special keyboard effects. Game-relevant keys such as movement and skill keys will receive special illumination, and game states related to cooldowns, upgrades, health, stamina, and focus charge will be reflected in the illumination of the keyboard. Health, stamina, and Focus meters are represented on the F1-F12 keys for quick reference, as well.

NEW PARTNER SKINS!

Starting July 20th, our partners at Alienware (site, social), Logitech (site, social), Razer (site, social), Steam (site, social), and Steelseries (site, social) will be offering exclusive partner skins for Gigantic! Keep an eye on their sites for more details about how to unlock each skin for your favorite heroes!

Steam users will be able to pick up Beckett's Stone Relics skin straight from the shop on July 20th!

NEW STEAM SKIN!

"The temple ruins held many treasures that time had long since forgotten."

GENERAL UPDATES

GENERAL

Fixed a bug where playing on the 'Low' texture setting would result in a checkerboard texture rather than the intended textures.

Fixed a bug where the "Buy / Draw Card" text was being truncated in the Fortune Card menu.

ARC UPDATES

With the arrival of the Arc launcher via Steam, you'll notice a few changes to the Arc launcher when you launch the game via Steam.

The default shortcut to open the Arc overlay has been changed to SHIFT+F1 from SHIFT+TAB to avoid interfering with the Steam overlay. Note that this will not impact users who have already modified their overlay key(s).

It is HIGHLY recommended that you change the shortcut to open the Arc overlay to a combination other than SHIFT+TAB. ALT+F4 and ALT+ESC are also not recommended.

The SOCIAL tab has been renamed FORUMS. This tab will now take you to the forum of the Arc game you most recently played.

TUTORIAL UPDATES

Following the advancements made to the Tutorial in the June update, we've added some additional polish and improvements to the learning experience.

Improved the behavior of the bots during the Tutorial missions.

Based on feedback and focus testing, we've improved the clarity of certain lessons, added additional information, and highlighted important game mechanics more prominently during the Tutorial.

VOICE CHAT UPDATES (v2)

The July update introduces a number of bug fixes and improvements to the integrated voice chat in the game. Unfortunately, a dedicated push-to-talk setting is still in the works, but should show up with the August build!

Voice Settings: Added an option to auto-switch the voice chat from crew to team chat when a match begins, then switch back to crew chat when the match ends. This setting defaults to Off.

Voice Settings: Added the ability to select whether you communicate with your crew or your team by default. The setting defaults to Crew Only. Setting Auto-Switch to Team to On will automatically swap from your crew to full team chat when you enter a match.

Added an icon on the hero confirmation screen and in the upper left corner of the in-game HUD that shows when you're speaking. Note that this does not show when others are speaking at this time.

Added new sound effects to the lightning storm during the Sanctum Falls Clash.

Updated the rampage sound effects to match the new visual effects.

The voice line when Heroes are low on health now triggers more reliably. (Note that there are skills which can kill a Hero before they cross the line that would trigger the low health warning, and thus bypass the event.)

Delayed when the 'Guardian Defender' badge's voice line triggers until after the Guardian announces their recovery.

GAME RULES

GAME RULE: RESPAWNS

Respawn times were short enough to make it difficult for the assaulting team to capitalize on objectives after securing a few kills. Increasing these times not only gives the victors a little more time to hunt down the last player and achieve a full team wipe, but will make the feeling of being the last player on your team (and staying alive long enough for them to respawn) a more interesting and important mechanic in the game.

Increased the base Hero respawn timer from 15 to 18 seconds.

GAME RULE: BOT MATCH IMPROVEMENTS

We've made several improvements to our bot matches, continuing to build on the technology implemented in the June Update. Here's some of the big changes:

Bots will now use skills other than their primary attack.

Bots will more frequently prioritize defending the Wound and protecting their creatures.

Implemented a number of fixes so as to improve their movement around the map.

Fixed a bug where placing an Obelisk on Point D would spell certain doom for the bots, who would hide on the airship for the remainder of the match.

PROGRESSION & REWARDS

SKINS

We've added the ability to purchase all Uncommon skins with Crowns. This means that any Hero skin that could be purchased for 500 Rubies can now also be purchased for 15,000 Crowns.

We've made several adjustments to several Aurion skins, mainly adding visual effects where they were missing.

VODEN CHAMPION OF AURION

Added skill visual effects to Champion of Autumn and Champion of Spring skins.

Removed the visual effects from the poison cloud when using the Champion of Aurion, Champion of Autumn, and Champion of Spring skins.

BECKETT CHAMPION OF AURION

Added skill visual effects to the Champion of the Sky and Champion of the Clouds skins.

GUARDIANS

GENERAL

Reduced the shield generated when killing an attacking Hero during the rampage (after the attacking Guardian has dealt damage) from 400 to 300 shield.

SUMMONED CREATURES

GENERAL

Fixed an exploit which allowed players to bypass the Focus cost required to summon an adult creature on a point.

Since our changes in the June update, we felt that creatures were dying slightly too quickly. Creatures should feel like objectives that can be contested without requiring your entire team, but also have enough health for their allies to react, rotate, and put up a defense before they die. These changes should give players a few more seconds to recognize, react, and defend their creatures when they come under attack.

Increased the health of all young creatures by ~10%.

Increased the health of all adult creatures by ~5%.

DRAKES

Fixed a bug where Storm Drakes would stop attacking if an enemy moved into melee range.

BATTLEGROUNDS

GENERAL

Fixed a bug where the character models would be floating at their spawn points during the intro cutscene to each match.

Fixed a rare bug where the match loading screen would use artwork from unreleased maps.

TUTORIAL

Fixed a bug where scrolling with the mouse wheel when selecting a Hero would highlight all Hero portraits as available to pick.

Fixed a bug where rebinding 'Tab' to another key would prevent users from dismissing Tutorial tool-tips.

HEROES

RMB/LT // DRAGON'S BREATH

Back Burner upgrade: Fixed a bug where taking Back Burner would remove the effects of the Burning Breath specialization.

RMB/LT // RAIL GUN

Fixed a bug where taking the Heat Transfer specialization would negate any damage dealt by the Hand Canon upgrade.

Q/LB // SPECIAL AMMO

Blast Radius upgrade: Fixed a bug where the effects of the Sniper Superiority upgrade (RMB/LT) would get overwritten by the Blast Radius upgrade.

Blast Radius upgrade: Fixed a bug where taking the upgrade would prevent the damage multiplier UI from reaching x3.

E/RB // BULL RUSH

The Major Beef upgrade is often perceived as weak when compared to its counterpart, considering you have to sacrifice your speed boost to gain the health benefits. In order to make the trade more worthwhile, we've increased the benefits of the upgrade.

Major Beef upgrade: Increased the bonus health provided by the upgrade from 200 to 400 health.

Thick Skinned upgrade: Increased the additional health provided by the upgrade from 150 to 200.

GENERAL

Fixed a bug where jumping and immediately using her Focus attack would cause her to jump very high. She's been grounded for exploiting the intended physics of the world.

Q/LB // ELECTRIC SLIDE

Static Shield upgrade: Reduced the duration of the deflection shield created during the slide from 3 to 2 seconds.

F/LS+RS // BLADESTORM

Improved the targeting when the Focus is Primed to more clearly reflect the range of the Focus.

RMB/LT // SMITE

Purifying Flame upgrade: Fixed a bug where the upgrade would not properly apply debuff immunity to friendly creatures.

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